The Relationship of STEM Attitudes and Career Interest

This study examines the relationships between attitudes toward all core STEM subjects and interest in STEM careers among 4th through 12th grade US students through the administration of the Student Attitudes toward STEM (S-STEM) Survey to over 15,000 public school students. The research developed a model based on expectancy-value theory that incorporates key demographic factors of age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Our findings reinforce prior research that students across key demographic factors perceive biological/clinical and physical science career paths differently, resulting in two career clusters. Of interest, the relationship of mathematics attitudes to career interest varied by STEM career cluster. Findings were also supportive of the conclusion that students’ attitudes towards STEM careers are not static over their primary and secondary grades, stabilizing and leveling during their secondary years. Gender showed significantly different interest levels for the two career clusters: males higher for physical sciences and females higher for biological/clinical sciences. Racial/ethnic disparity in STEM career interests can be seen more readily in physical sciences and engineering than in the biological sciences. Overall, our work reinforces findings that students, as young as elementary grades, are forming attitudinal associations between their academic and life experience and future STEM careers

Scientific Visualisation: Linking Science and Technology Education through Graphic Communications

Scientific visualisation is a new curriculum in the technology education area in orth Carolina, USA. The goal of this two-course curriculum is to help develop students' ability to communicate technical and scientific information to a variety of audiences. A historical context is set to help explain the development of this curriculum. The curriculum's unique application of the design process to visualisation methods and its emphasis on the use of science and technology concepts for visualisation topics are discussed. How curriculum is implemented in the classroom and an example activity are outlined

Computational Thinking Integration into Middle Grades Science Classrooms: Strategies for Meeting the Challenges

This paper reports findings from the efforts of a university-based research team as they worked with middle school educators within formal school structures to infuse computer science principles and computational thinking practices. Despite the need to integrate these skills within regular classroom practices to allow all students the opportunity to learn these essential 21st Century skills, prior practice has been to offer these learning experiences outside of mainstream curricula where only a subset of students have access. We have sought to leverage elements of the research-practice partnership framework to achieve our project objectives of integrating computer science and computational thinking within middle science classrooms. Utilizing a qualitative approach to inquiry, we present narratives from three case schools, report on themes across work sites, and share recommendations to guide other practitioners and researchers who are looking to engage in technology-related initiatives to impact the lives of middle grades students

Face-to-Face, Hybrid, or Online?: Issues Faculty Face Redesigning an Introductory Engineering Graphics Course

A hybrid introductory course was developed and piloted during the Fall 2007 semester in three laptop sections (i.e., all of the students owned and brought laptops to class each day). The online portion of the course included voiced-over content presentations, software demonstrations, and sketching examples as well as online assessments. Sections met in the classroom once each week where instructors discussed and demonstrated essential CAD and textbook content. This time was also used to answer student questions and give feedback on homework and CAD exercises. Outside of class, students were expected to view the online content, complete CAD and sketching exercises, and complete a weekly online assessment. No difference was found between final exam scores in the hybrid sections and the face-to-face sections. This paper discusses the implementation of the hybrid introductory engineering graphics course, summarizes data collected during the Fall 2007 semester pilot study, and offers some discussions about the relative advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face, hybrid, and all online delivery

Scientific visualization: a new basic in design and technology

Since 1995, the authors have been developing a new secondary school curriculum in Scientific Visualization. This curriculum is currently part of the Technology Education area in North Carolina, USA. The goal of this two-course curriculum is to help develop student's ability to communicate technical and scientific information to a variety of audiences. The development of this curriculum has been motivated by a belief that graphics, as a means of communication, has been growing rapidly as a means of communication worldwide, but has been largely neglected as a course of study in US secondary schools. This presentation will give an overview of the Scientific Visualization curriculum. As part of this overview, how this curriculum supports the goals of design and technology education and constructivist education philosophy will be presented

Evolving Technical Graphics in the High Schools: A New Curriculum in Scientific Visualization

A new curriculum, Scientific Visualization, is being taught by high school technical graphics and science teachers for the first time in the Fall of 1997.  This curriculum reflects a broadening application of computer graphics techniques in the workplace and represents a rich area for technical graphics teachers at all levels of education to be involved in.  The goal of the two-course sequence at the high school level is to give students expertise in manipulating both geometry and the visual characteristics of geometry, such as color and texture.  These visual elements are used to construct 2-D and 3-D graphic images which support the understanding of scientific and technical principles.  These courses are meant to complement rather than replace more mainstream technical graphics courses in architectural and mechanical graphics.  The proposed student populations taking the scientific visualization courses are not only the traditional vocational track students, but also pre-college students planning on studying in scientific, engineering, and technical fields.  Work is underway developing an extensive set of support materials and sample problems for use in the newly developed curriculum.  Implications for teaching technical graphics in higher education will be discussed in this paper, as well as the impact this type of curriculum may have on colleges and universities with future students having gone through this type of course and training

New measurement paradigms

This collection of New Measurement Paradigms papers represents a snapshot of the variety of measurement methods in use at the time of writing across several projects funded by the National Science Foundation (US) through its REESE and DR K–12 programs. All of the projects are developing and testing intelligent learning environments that seek to carefully measure and promote student learning, and the purpose of this collection of papers is to describe and illustrate the use of several measurement methods employed to achieve this. The papers are deliberately short because they are designed to introduce the methods in use and not to be a textbook chapter on each method. The New Measurement Paradigms collection is designed to serve as a reference point for researchers who are working in projects that are creating e-learning environments in which there is a need to make judgments about students’ levels of knowledge and skills, or for those interested in this but who have not yet delved into these methods

Effect of bos indicus influence and pregnancy on feeder heifer gains

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